Shaukat Molla files FIR against Election Commissioner, alleges deletion of 33,000 voters

A fresh political flashpoint has emerged ahead of the Assembly elections after Trinamool Congress MLA Shaukat Molla filed an FIR against Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging large-scale deletion of voters during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The complaint was lodged at Jibantala police station in South 24 Parganas district.

On Friday afternoon, the Canning East MLA reached the police station accompanied by several affected voters and claimed that nearly 33,000 names from his constituency had been marked as “returned” and subsequently removed from the voter list. He alleged that the deletions were part of a deliberate political conspiracy.

“These are people whose names were recorded in the 1980 voter list and who have been residents here for decades,” Molla said, asserting that repeated appeals at the administrative level had yielded no results. He described the alleged deletions as an attack on the democratic process of free and fair elections and claimed that a particular political party was behind the move.

The controversy comes amid statewide tension over the reported removal of around 5.8 million names from electoral rolls under the SIR process. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has earlier termed the exercise an “NRC through the backdoor,” intensifying the political debate over voter list revisions.

Molla has indicated that he will file a separate complaint at Bhangar police station as well. While the Election Commission has not issued an official response so far, police have accepted the complaint and initiated an investigation. With elections approaching, the dispute over voter deletions is expected to further escalate political temperatures in the state.